A fishing tournament is an organized competition among anglers. Fishing tournaments typically take place as a series of competitive events around or on a clearly defined body of water with specific rules applying to each tournament. Fishing tournaments have become a popular way to support charity, education, or the like just causes. As with any gaming competition, the participants compete for bragging rights as well as prizes. Typically, anglers compete for prizes based on the total weight of a given species of fish caught within a predetermined time, while other tournaments are based purely on length and have mandatory catch and release requirements. The sport has evolved from local fishing contests into large competitive circuits, especially in North America. As the tournaments grow and the anglers become more adept at targeting fish, the tournaments have become more selective as to the type of fish targeted. For instance, the KDW is popular fishing tournament format which targets kingfish, dolphin fish, and wahoo.
With the popularity of fishing tournaments and the fishing industry increasing, anglers are better equipped with faster boats having stronger fishing gear and equipped with the latest in advanced technologies that allow for tracking specific schools of species. These advancements have led to a strain on various species of fish, especially billfish. A marlin is a species of billfish holding the distinct position as one of the larger fish in the ocean. The largest females can reach up to feet and weigh upwards of 1,500 lbs. The marlin is easily recognizable because of its cobalt blue top and silvery white scales below, additionally a long lethal spear shaped upper jaw is most distinctive as it projects outward. The marlin is also known to be one of the fastest and strongest fish in the ocean, making it a targeted species to be caught in both tournaments and recreationally. Traditionally, tournament anglers, where it was a requirement, and recreational anglers brought a caught marlin in to shore to be weighed, which typically resulted in the death of the marlin during the transfer from the ocean to the pier. Once a marlin is weighed at a pier, the marlin is typically discarded as the eating of this particular fish requires an acquired taste. Thus there exists a need for a means to weigh-in a catch without harm to the fish.
Fishing tournaments are confined to a body of water or region in the ocean, participants pursue a common goal or target species, and the fishing tournament results are kept within the host community. The internet has started a new trend giving fishing tournaments a worldwide presence. The internet has allowed fishing tournaments to take place in multiple bodies of water spanning multiple areas within a country or multiple countries. Now anglers who live hundreds of miles apart can participate in the same fishing tournament, pursuing the same prize while fishing in different bodies of water.
Not only are new fishing tournaments being conducted online but now event officials are placing their fishing tournaments online, thus allowing participants to post their results online in real-time. Other tournaments based purely on fish length with mandatory catch and release, whereby either the longest fish or total length is documented with a camera and results are posted online immediately. These changes have lowered the fish kill in many tournaments as participants no longer have to kill their fish for weigh-in if they already know it won't be a top contender or where fish length is the standard a kill is no longer necessary.
Subsequently, the internet has increased fishing tournament participation among anglers as well as created very generous prizes due to more exposure and participation. As the tournament popularity increases and the demand for seafood in the food industry remains high, the fish can become more elusive. Advancements in the fishing industry have led to technologies that have made such obstacles easier to overcome, such as making the targeting of large fish more exact. Thus the potential for large fishing tournaments to impact the environment and fish stocks is substantial. For this reason, it is most beneficial that the fish caught during a tournament be measured and released, without causing trauma or death to the fish during its release. Recognizing the need for catch and release because of the impact on the environment and fish stock some fishing tournaments require video documentation of the catching and releasing of a fish along with the Global Positioning System, or GPS, verified time in an unbroken video in order to award points. It is therefore important to be able to accurately reflect the time and size of a fish caught.
Other fishing tournaments, specifically where competitors do not submit their catch results online, use fish weight or documentation of the catch and release as the means for awarding prizes. These fishing tournaments maintain rigid hours of competition and require boats to be at weigh-in stations before a given time if the fish caught, or documented, is to be counted for competition purposes. This time restriction helps the tournament maintain a boundary of fishing area. However, this has led to increasingly more powerful fishing boats capable of great speeds for the sole purpose of getting back to the weigh-in station from far away. A fast moving fishing boat racing back to a weigh-in station creates a dangerous situation, one that has at times led to crashes and lawsuits against both the boat owners and the fishing tournaments.
Thus what is lacking in the art is a system and method to upload an image or video of the catch and release, which includes a GPS time and location stamp, a means to measure the fish length, and predict the fish weight based upon the fish length; thereby imposing less trauma to the fish during catch and release, improving fish stock, eliminating the need for the angler to kill the fish by returning to a weigh-station for the sole purpose of size estimation, and preventing the need for unsafe racing back to the shore to submit evidence of the catch.